The battle over the Soviet past, she suggests, not only illuminates the dynamic between elite and mass political actors during liberalization, but reveals the scars that totalitarian rule has left on Russian society and the long-term obstacles to reform it has created.
Available as an e-book through the link.

Alec Nove traces the origins of Stalinism in the USSR, critically analyzes its nature and achievements, examines the process of De-Stalinization which followed Stalin's death, and explores the evolution of the Soviet system under Krushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev.
This book is available on the Uni High Reserve cart.

A sweeping narrative history of Eastern Europe from the late eighteenth century to today. In particular, pay attention to Chapter 20 on Destalinization.

Available as an e-book.

What was known about Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during his career was strictly limited by the secretive Soviet government. Little more information was available after he was ousted and became a "non-person" in the ussr in 1964. This pathbreaking book draws for the first time on a wealth of newly released materials--documents from secret former Soviet archives, memoirs of long-silent witnesses, the full memoirs of the premier himself--to assemble the best-informed analysis of the Khrushchev years ever completed. The contributors to this volume include Russian, Ukrainian, American, and British scholars; a former key foreign policy aide to Khrushchev; the executive secretary of a Russian commission investigating Soviet-era repressions and rehabilitations; and Khrushchev's own son Sergei. The book presents and interprets new information on Khrushchev's struggle for power, public attitudes toward him, his role in agricultural reform and cultural politics, and such foreign policy issues as East-West relations, nuclear strategy, and relations with Germany. It also chronicles Khrushchev's years in Ukraine where he grew up and began his political career, serving as Communist party boss from 1938 to 1949, and his role in mass repressions of the 1930s and in destalinization in the 1950s and 1960s. Two concluding chapters compare the regimes of Khrushchev and Gorbachev as they struggled to reform Communism, to humanize and modernize the Soviet system, and to answer the haunting question that persists today: Is Russia itself reformable?

Available as an e-book.

Robert A.D. Ford is the only Western diplomat to have known and dealt with all the Soviet leaders from the end of the Second World War to the present. In this memoir he offers a unique perspective on post-war Soviet politics and Russian life.
Available as an e-book.

This book examines the social and cultural impact of the 'thaw' in Cold War relations, decision-making and policy formation in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. It highlights the fact that many of the reform initiatives generally associated with Khrushchev personally, and with his period of office more generally, often had their roots in the Stalin period both in their content and in the ways in which they were implemented. Individual case studies explore key aspects of Khrushchev's period of office, including the introduction of the 1961 Communist Party Programme and popular responses to it, housing policy, the opening up of the Soviet Union to the West during the 1957 youth festival, public consultation campaigns and policy implementation in education and family law, the boost given to voluntary organisations such as women's councils and the trade unions, the reshaping of the internal Soviet security apparatus, the emergence of political dissent and the nature of civil-military relations as reflected in the events of the workers' uprising in Novocherkassk in 1962.
Available as an e-book and on reserve at Uni High Library.

This volume introduces and provides a brief overview of major factors that contributed to the Cuban missile crisis during October 1962. Personal narratives are also shared, allowing readers first-hand details that other books on this topic do not supply. Readers hear from a Soviet Naval Officer as he goes to battle, and a British Journalist who recalls the tense weeks of the crisis. Two native Cubans also share their memories.
Available as an e-book.

In October, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis brought human civilization to the brink of destruction. On the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous confrontation of the nuclear era, two of the leading experts on the crisis recreate the drama of those tumultuous days as experienced by the leaders of the three countries directly involved: U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban President Fidel Castro. Organized around the letters exchanged among the leaders as the crisis developed and augmented with many personal details of the circumstances under which they were written, considered, and received, Blight and Lang poignantly document the rapidly shifting physical and psychological realities faced in Washington, Moscow, and Havana. The result is a revolving stage that allows the reader to experience the Cuban missile crisis as never before--through the eyes of each leader as they move through the crisis. The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis transports the reader back to October 1962, telling a story as gripping as any fictional apocalyptic novel.
On reserve at Uni High Library.